


Hello Treegap New Hampshire, Catch Me Up on What's New

by certifiedgarbage



Category: Tuck Everlasting - Miller/Tysen/Shear & Federle, Tuck Everlasting - Natalie Babbitt
Genre: Angst, HI MR. PORCHER, I love my immortal gay son, M/M, REALLY NOT subtle newsies references, Winnie might be a bit ooc compared to her 11 year old self, all the angst at the end, also an english assignment, alternate ending story so...yeah, crutchie/jessie tuck conspiracy, implied suicide but he's immortal so he's ok, jackcrutchiedavey references but nothing obvious, jesse/crutchie is kinda gay for jack and davey, not so subtle waitress references, porcher i'm not going crazy i swear, winnie's really mad at jesse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 02:09:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11003790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/certifiedgarbage/pseuds/certifiedgarbage
Summary: An alternate ending to Natalie Babbit's book 'Tuck Everlasting' to see what would happen if Jesse actually returned to see Winnie one last time in the same universe as the book where she (sadly) was smart and logical enough to not drink from the spring. My take on how what could've happened and because I project my dark thoughts and tendencies onto my characters, there's no happy ending. This is also based on the Jesse/Crutchie conspiracy so this is for the Fansies.





	Hello Treegap New Hampshire, Catch Me Up on What's New

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, first published story ever so be kind on your thoughts, please. Or don't, I really don't care. Like in the tags, this is for an English assignment based on the book but I love the musical and AKB so consider this a combination of both, but mainly book verse so hi, Mr. Porcher. If you're not my English teacher and you stumbled across this fanfic for Tuck Everlasting, also hi.

“Hello Treegap, New Hampshire”, Jesse Tuck murmured wistfully. “Did you miss me?”  
1948\. A few years after the second World War had ended and the need for hardworking Americans manning the factories had quickly disintegrated, giving him reason to leave his New York home with jobs in factories of about 50 or so years. The young – if you can even call an immortal young – stared down the dirt gravel road at the large sign on the side of the pathway with boldly painted letters, the ‘WELCOME TO TREEGAP’ visible even through the chipping red paint

Jesse mentally steeled himself with a shiver as the cool autumn breeze caressed his slim body. It had been a while ever since he had returned to the once small town though the thought to do so had laid ever present on his mind the moment he had left for New York City. Family reunions be damned, Jesse had made some honest-to-God friends there who trusted and cared for him like one of their own and damn it all to hell if he was going to leave them for his immortal family. He had planned to never come back, at least not until a century had passed and there was nothing left of the 1800s for him to reminisce about but there he was: a worn and raggedy newsboy cap on his head, a weathered bag stuffed full of whatever pictures he could salvage for memories’ sakes, and a familiar nostalgic ache in his heart. ‘Why exactly did I come back’, Jesse groaned inwardly, ‘why am I here agai-‘

“Aye! Young man, get yersef ou’ of the road before I run ya o’er!”

A salt-and-pepper haired truck driver hollered at Jesse from behind the wheel, snapping him from his daze with a jump of surprise. “Yep, yessir will do!” Jesse yelped as he frantically scurried off the center of road. Not that getting run over would kill him or anything but the only thing he could think right then and there was…what the hell of that guy’s accent? Irish? Scottish? Brooklyn? Man, America was changing quickly but it was something he would have to get used to; only infinite numbers of millenniums to go, better get used to change.

Sighing, Jesse carried on his way towards the center of the town, the wind ruffling his hair as he passed the newer houses with their shiny coat of possibly cyanide white paint towards where the older and more rickety buildings stood. He saw the new – wait no that was the old jailhouse now and the gallows which were (hopefully) merely a historical object of punishments half a century ago. Jesse spotted a cozy-looking diner named…Lulu’s Pies? That was an odd name and place that looked a bit too forward for its time. Shaking the weird feeling from his thoughts, Jesse entered the diner, the smell of baked goods punching his face and the establishment’s patrons' eyes attaching themselves to the young stranger.

“Howdy!” A cheerfully young voice came up from behind him along with a welcoming hand on his shoulder. He turned around to be greeted with a beaming smile on a (to be frank) baby face framed with tufts of sandy blonde hair. The boy looked about Jesse’s age, really; or at least the age he seemed to be. “Welcome to Lulu’s Pies, the name’s Andrew. What brings you ‘round here to our small town?”

Jesse was taken aback by the boy’s fast-paced talking but if there was anything Jesse Tuck was good at, it was being fast paced and a bit hyperactive. Shaking Andrew’s hand, he sported a kind smile of his own. “Jesse Tuck, how do?” The other boy’s grin seemed to grow twice fold at the cheery response to his own greeting. He led Jesse to the counter-booth things with the spinning stools that he never knew what exactly what the official term was with Andrew going behind the counter.

“So”, Andrew quipped, pouring steaming coffee into a mug and gently sliding it towards Jesse, “What brings you to our quaint little town of Treegap? Not many folks come here. Not many folks leave either unless you count deployment from the war a few years back so I guess that's what keeps the town alive.”Jesse bit his lip in silent panic. What was he supposed to say? ‘Hi, I’m visiting my gal who I was supposed to meet back here 67 years ago but I was too scared that she moved on and I kinda fell in love with a few men so I’m coming back before she dies’?

“My grandfather used to live here!” Jesse blurted out. “He met a girl way back when in this town when he was a teenager and he recently just died so he err- he told me to go talk and give this thing he made for her. Last dying wish and resolving regrets and all that jazz…” “Mmhm?” Andrew nodded, his mouth fill of his own coffee, looking too much like a gossiping housewife to make any other prompting sound.

Jesse chuckled nervously, fiddling with the hem of his weathered coat. “Hopefully she’s err- not dead yet?” That garnered a laugh from Andrew with Jesse quickly following in suit albeit the latter’s was to mask his awkwardness. “So yeah…”, the immortal boy took a short sip of his drink, the caffeine flowing through his body. “Say, do you happen to know the Foster family by any chance? I need to find them for a thing for my grandfather.”

A look of realization quickly graced Andrew’s face. “You bet I do!”, he crowed excitedly. “I’m a Foster myself! Or at least I would’ve been if my ma kept her mother’s maiden name since my grandmamma was too proud of her family name to change it so technically, it’s ‘Foster-Delancey’ but my grandmamma was a Foster from long ago. Your grandpa’s gal? She’s probably my grandmamma! She always told me and my sis stories of a family named tuck when we were kids and she said she met them when she was 11 which means that we’ve been here since forever, enough to meet your grandpa and –“

“Forever?” Jesse felt a knowing smirk paint itself across his lips.

Andrew rolled his eyes. “Well not forever, silly”, he retorted. “Just a gosh darn long time. And hey! How ‘bout I show where my house is so you can finish your grandpa’s dying wish or whatever?” “No, no I wouldn’t want to impose on you right no, I can find my own way…”, the immortal shook his head frantically. What in the every-loving hell was he doing?  
It had taken him a while to figure it out but his little spark of a Winnie had grandkids over the decades and oh god, he could see her cute button nose in Andrew so all that means that Winnie would’ve married some boy in town. So she never drank from the spring. She decided that it was due time to move on. She had new dreams to move upon.  
Winnie didn’t wait for him.

“HEY MS. JENNA!”, Andrew called over his shoulder, snapping Jesse out of his mind-racing daze. “I’m gonna show my new friend ‘round town, give ‘em a tour and all that routine stuff. That okay with you?” The blonde haired boy began o t untie his coffee stained apron slowly, eyes darting behind him presumably where this ‘Ms. Jenna’ was despite Jesse’s stuttering refusals that he could hold his own through the town.

“Boy, you aren’t going anywhere!” a slight southern drawl retorted accompanied with a blonde head of a middle-aged woman through the small window from the kitchen. “Andy, you know that I need all hands on deck while Becky’s’ getting married after her divorce and Dawn’s eight months pregnant with a baby. Lulu’s still at her dance practice and I can barely handle rush hour by myself.” “But Ms. Jenna…”Andrew let out a childish, playful whine. “No buts, young man! Fir all I know, you could just be using your new friend as an excuse to meet with that boy from down the street. What’s his name, sweetie? Scott, isn’t it?”

Andrew’s ears turned rose red as he hid his face most likely of the same color in his hands and let out a deep, gutted groan. Chuckling, Jesse patted his friend’s arm lightly. “Don’t let me take you from your work”, he smiled, running a hand through his chocolate locks. “My grandpa kinda told me where to go before he kicked the bucket. New the wood at the edge of town, right?” He started making his way towards the door.

“Yup. Don’t you get lost now, Jesse Tuck.” Jesse snuck a quick glance behind him to see Andrew flash him a warm smile before handling other customers of the diner. So this is what having a friend felt lie. He hadn’t experienced that kind of warmth and happiness since…since Jack and that was a few decades ago. “I’ll see you again, Andrew Foster”, he called over his shoulder with a smirk adorned on his face as he walked out the diner, the scent of freshly baked pies wafting through the front door and lingered ext to him.  
Ahh, Treegap my old friend. It’s been a while, Jesse thought. How long had it been ever since he last visited the town? 60, 70 years? The time had flown by like the ravens n the sky. The wind swirled around him in the cloudy afternoon as he walked down the line of shops bordering the criss-crossing streets and toward the edge of the town. Things had definitely changed ever since the alluring dream of New York City had pulled him away from New Hampshire. A gas station here, another one there, shiny new cars with yellow headlights in the driveways… The world was moving on without him.

And he was finally there, letting his wandering footsteps plant themselves firmly at the fate of the house right at the edge of the rustic town. Jesse looked to his left and damn. “What did they do to you?”, he murmured, as if the wood near there (or what was left of it) could hear him over the creaking rumble of the bright yellow machines covering the land and knocking out the wildlife. Bulldozers, people called them?

And the trees. The trees were gone. Goddamn bulldozer-loving, tree killing construction workers. Jesse clenched his foists together and subconsciously bare his teeth in the direction of the torn down wood. Sure, he had fallen out of a tree before and would’ve broken his neck but he would’ve poured the entire spring onto those trees to make them live forever if Mae had let him.

HOOOOOOOOOOONK

"Jesus fuc-FUDGING Christ!” Jesse bit down on his tongue. He could hear his mother’s shrill voice when he had first cursed in front of her 82 years ago, a habit he had been trying to kick ever since. Nevertheless the steed deathtraps never failed to bring an ‘f’ bomb from his mouth. Turning his view back to what was probably the Foster family house, he creaked open the gate and walked towards the front door, letting the metal opening swing shut behind him.

The touch-me-not cottage looked new. Newer, at least. The tall iron bars that copied the ones of a prison were instead replaced with the outcome of splitting rails like he and jack had seen during their visit to Santa Fe. The grey-ish paint of the house was reborn with a snowy white with the window sills lined with flower beds. Jesse’s feet felt like concrete as he dragged them forward. 

He reached up a hand near the oak door, poised to knock. What if Winnie didn’t want him? He had promised to come back for her soon and soon for temporary people probably didn’t mean 67 years later. What if the Fosters saw through his excuse to see Winnie? What if she was already dead and gone? What if this wasn’t even the Foster house?!

Screw it.

Jesse knocked once, twice, three times but no one answered. “Whelp, that was no use. Better leave now”, he mumbled to himself, backtracking through the stone pathway leading from the door as fast as he could. “It’s not too late to turn back now, “Jesse hummed under his breath. He shouldered his bag over his coat again. Not two moments later and then, “Mister! Come back!”, called a tinny voice. Dammit.

He turned around slowly, his newsboy cap covering half of his upper features and saw a young blonde girl with similar features to Andrew’s. “Sir! Oh wait, you’re like my age. What do you need?”, she asked again from the front porch of the house. Taking a deep breath, Jesse bit his lip and walked towards her, straightening his shoulders as he went. “Can you tell me that this is the Foster, err- Delancey household?”, Jesse asked, his firm tone masking an emotion commonly known as what-the-hell-am-I-doing. 

The girl furrowed her eyebrows. ‘Yes, this is it,” she replied. “Pray tell, what’s your business and how did you find us?”, she asked. Jesse let out a weak chuckle. “Well, miss, I’m looking for someone and I assume your brother kinda reaffirmed what my grandfather told me on where to find your family. Near the wood, he told me. Or”, he nodded his head at the bulldozers, “what’s left of it.”

“Year, they had to tear down the entire wood. Some lightening struck it a while back and it became a fire hazard and all that stuff.”

“Cecilia, who are you talking to, sweetie?”, a matronly voice came from the stark hallway from behind the porch. As she walked to the door and placed a firm hand on the girl- Cecilia’s shoulder, Jesse could see that the woman was wearing a black, knee length dress with her lips pursed tightly together. “Who are you, young man?” Her tired yet rigid tone cut through the air sharper than the autumn wind.

Jesse quickly tore his cap off his head and held the brim against his chest for politeness’s sake, bowing his head down ever so slightly. “Good afternoon ma’am. Jesse Tuck”. He gently recovered his dark hair with the newsboy cap again and stuck out his hand. “I’m looking for someone? Winifred –maiden name- Foster?”

The woman raised an eyebrow and her grip on Cecilia weakened. “Tuck, you say?” “Mmhm.” Her features relaxed and she shook Jesse’s hand fairly. “Come inside”, she said and Jesse was led through the picture frame-covered hallway full of snapshots of young Winnie, old, Winnie, Andrew, Cecilia, the woman… all of their faces adorned with smiles. So this is what she got in return for not drinking from the spring, he though wistfully.

The woman stopped them at the living room. “Please, take a seat”, she told Jesse warmly, gesturing to the plump grandma-looking armchair behind him. He complied. “Go back to you room Cecilia, I want to talk to Mr. Tuck in private.” “But mother…” Cecilia’s mother flashed a stern look and the blonde marched upstairs, dragging her feet behind her. “Call me Katherine", she said as she sat on the couch opposite of Jesse, facing him. Jesse could see the deep, dark bags under her eyes penetrating her pasty skin. “Why do you need to see my mother?”, she asked tiredly.

Oh. Damn. This lady was Winnie’s daughter.

Jesse bit his lip and glanced down, suddenly finding the tops of his work boots very interesting. “So uh, my grandfather used to live in Treegap for while when he was in his teens. He um- he met your mother when they were kids I suppose and he told me to come here to meet with her.” Katherine stared at him with curious eyes.” Why couldn’t he have gone himself?”, she asked tentatively. “I mean, not disrespect to your grandfather but making you, a 17 year old boy, roam the countryside alone for one old lady isn’t exactly the best decision an adult, especially a grandfather, can make.”

“He’s dead”, Jesse blurted out. “Along with my whole family. And his dying wish was to give this thing to your mother…” He dug through his worn bag to pull out a baseball sized object covered in a small purple-colored velvet pouch. “It’s a music box, see?” Jesse removed the fabric and carefully took out the music box, showing a maple-wood object with brass finishing on the top and sides. 

Turning the silver handle on the side of the box, the lacquered top tinkled open, revealing a small platform rising up. On the platform were two tiny figuerines with their knees tuck to their chests and holding each other’s porcelain hands like nothing break them apart. Of the fragile figurines were a boy with tousled brown hair, sun-kissed skin, decorative green suspenders, and a carefree smirk painted on his face. And the other figure, a slight girl decorated with fiery red hair flowing across her face, a stiff green dress adorned by her small frame, and a merry smile on her lips. All the while, dainty music played from the box sounding like what the twinkling stars in the night sky would say if they had voices.  
“Oh!” Katherine gasped quietly with her eyes widening. “That’s the elf music my mother told me about when I was a little girl!”, she said. “We heard it every ten years and every time, it came from the wood!” Dammit, Mae CAN YOU BE ANY MORE CONSPICUOUS? “Really?” Jesse asked, pretending to be confused with wonder. Katherine nodded excitedly. “That’s the elf music!” She pointed at the music box. “Every night, she would him it to me before bedtime. And every night, she would tell me the story of a boy she had met bearing the name of Tuck. She would say that the boy had promised to come back to her. ‘He’ll come back someday’ but he never did. She never lost hope that he would one day return.”

She sighed. “I guess she wait too long for him. But perhaps”, Katherine looked at Jesse in the eye with a faint hopeful smile, “you’re the boy who was supposed to come all along.” She placed a hand on Jesse’s shoulder. “My mother is upstairs in her room. Would you like to meet her now?”

Jesse felt his breathing hitch and begin to speed up. His heart thumped louder and louder as he looked towards the stairs on the other side of the room which now seemed a daunting trek as to any mountain in the world. What the hell was he doing? What the hell was he doing?

He had imagined how he would greet Winnie for decades. He’d say ‘hello’ with a ‘Jesse Tuck, how do?’ just like the first time they had met each other near the spring. Winnie would be given the music box he had spent months working on and she’d be calm. A bit of anger but what’s a Winnie without being spitfire no matter at what age?

He had thought of every single possibility the conversation would and could go. She’s ask him why the hell he never came back and Jesse would tell her about Jack Kelly, defending his affect for the boy and of the other one whose mouth never stopped talking: Davey Jacobs. Both of them were stuck in New York so Jesse stayed with them, loyal until Davey had died at 18 years old after the newsboy strike a year prior and Jack was killed on a train robbery. Regardless, he had to see Winnie Foster again for the last time. Jesse had left Davey’s deathbed out of fear 48 years ago; he wasn’t going to live through that again with Winnie.

“Mr. Tuck!”

Katherine’s call snapped him out of his train of though. Jesse could see that the woman was looking at him with worried eyes. “Are you alright?”, she asked him inquisitively. “You seemed a bit pale and slightly out of t for a while there.” “Um, yeah. Yeah, I – I’m fine”, Jesse stuttered, his eyes dashing around the living room. “Shall we go now?” He breathed deeply and pointed towards the stairs. Katherine raised an eyebrow at him but said nothing; whether it was for his mind or worry about why in the world she let such strange boy into her household, he didn’t know. Nevertheless, Katherine stood up and began to lead Jesse up the wooden stairs.

Like the hallway from the front door, the wall on the side of the stairway was covered with photos. Unlike the hallway, however, the images were cold and stark. Instead of the warm family pictures of Cecilia, Andrew, and the family reunions, the wall was decorated with disapproving images of Winnie’s mother and father as well as the man who Jesse presumed was Winnie’s husband. He had seen the man around a couple decades ago while the man (was Hugo his name?) was training to become the town’s deputy, not that Treegap ever needed one.

The pair stopped in front of a door a couple steps away from stairs. “Here’s her room”, Katherine said solemnly. “She sleeps for half the day because of her weakening age but I think she’s awake right no. “She knocked on the door softly. “Mother?” She asked softly through the crack of the door. “There’s a boy named Tuck here to see you.”They both waited with bated breaths as Jesse’s nerves became more and more agitated. “Come in…”, a weak voice finally flitted through the wooden door. Katherine edged the door open and gently nudged Jesse into the room. Despite the curtained windows, Jesse could see a figure on the bed turn to face him. “You look exactly like your grandfather”, the figure croaked and Jesse took a step closer to the bedside.

The figure there looked…old. The skin around her eyes and on her face was ravaged by time and her hair seemed to be kissed by Jack Frost. But her eyes, those were the eyes Jesse had seen so long ago and event they were watery and jaded with age, those orbs were still bright with an immortal glint of mischief. Jesse turned around to look at Katherine and saw a faint smile grace her lips. “Good luck”, he saw her mouth to him and quietly shut the door behind her, leaving behind her mother and Jesse alone. Right as the door closed and the footsteps disappeared, Winnie’s voice suddenly became clear and strong unlike the sound that she had made while her daughter was there. “Let’s cut the crap before it’s even there, Jesse, why the ever-loving-hell are you here after 67 goddamn years?”

“Now, uh – le, let me explain, Winnie. I have my reasons-"

“I waited for 67 years and you never, ever came back. You promised you’d come back for me in 6 years, Jesse. 6 YEARS. I waited faithfully for you like a dog for so damn long and you come back expecting like everything’s been the same for the last 6 and a half decades with me running into your arms like I was 11 years old! So please grace me with your pitiful excuses for breaking promises.”

Jesse slowly approached Winnie’s bedside with his shoulders hunched up and his head bowed in shame. “Please forgive me, Winnie”, he said softly, “but I couldn’t come back, not after all that’s been going on.” He sat on a small chair next to Winnie’s laying form, the old woman staying silent through her tearful glares at him. “I had to stay low for a decade or two; you remember Mae’s escape from the jailhouse late at night where you helped save her?” Winnie didn’t respond. 

“I knew that they’d be searching for us ‘cause the officials knew me by my face that I was related to her and could tell her whereabouts. We ran all across America, we did. For a while, it was hard since my parents, me, and Miles stopped meeting back together to keep low profiles but then I came to New York City and I was hooked. It was like a drug, Winnie. I couldn’t leave even if I wanted to; it always drew me back and then I met this…wonderful boy. His name was Jack Kelly and he had the most beautiful smile and-"

“You never came back because you were in love with a boy?!”, Winnie screeched, her eyes turning into slits as she glared at him. “Wait, what? NO, no”, Jesse shook his head frantically. “A cart ran over my leg while he was watching and my leg was supposed to be real messed up and I had to pretend to have to use a crutch for the next couple years as a newsboy and- you know the strike of 1899?” Winnie nodded hesitantly. “Yeah. During the strike, I became friends with…a guy. Gorgeous eyes with a smart brain, beautiful voice-"

“Jesse!”

“Whoops, sorry. Anyways after the strike, that boy became sick. We don’t know with what and probably never will but he died after being tortured with the illness. I was there when he took his last breath and he was holding mine and Jack’s hand.” Jesse’s throat choked up and his eyes began brimming with tears. “I couldn’t handle it. I left for the mountains of Russia where there was no people and never returned to New York again. Then I figured that if I felt that way for a boy who I loved for only a couple of months, how regretful would I feel for the rest of eternity if I didn’t visit my best gal one last time?” Jesse took Winnie’s hand in his own. 

“I missed you, Winnie, more than you can understand right now.” But she tore her delicate hands from his. “I know you went through a lot with your love life, Jesse”, she started sarcastically, “But that is NO EXCUSE to never return when you said you would. ‘Six years from now, you will turn seventeen, the same age as me. Six years from now, go to the spring and drink. I’ll wait for you’ but that was a lie. A lie I believed for more than half of my life! And you lied to those boys who thought you had a limp but could walk perfectly normal!”

She sneered at him, cracking open Jesse’s newly healed heart. “You disgust me, Jesse Tuck. Never come to my home again.” And with that she turned to the other side of her bed, leaving the room once again in silence. Jesse sat there still; recoiling from the verbal lashings that had come from someone he had thought was so innocent, so carefree. Was telling her about Davey and Jack really the best way he could’ve brought his leave from civilization up? Probably not.

He took a shaky breath as he tried to control his tears threatening to break free from the brim of his eyes. “I’ll just leave then”, Jesse whispered to her as quiet as a mouse. Retrieving his bag from the floor, he took out the music box and laid it on the bed stand next to Winnie along with a yellowed letter. “If you ever change your mind on me.” He gestured towards the object with a nod of his head. Creeping open the door to leave, Jesse dashed out, running down the stairs, past Katherine who had a bewildered look on her face, and out the front door with droplets of tears splattered across his face, sobbing as he went.

Jesse ran through the town all the way back to the quiet road he had entered it through with such high hopes of forgiveness. And he didn’t stop running; he didn’t want to. The world was going wrong, all wrong, wrong, wrong and he didn’t know how to fix it. Jesse felt like the world was bearing on him and the source of all his troubles: the spring, Winnie, everything.

He collapsed in the middle of the road with wet sobs wracking his body and stared down the pathway at the incoming car. Jesse wanted it to all end, including his immortality.

 

Maybe this time around, he would die and stay dead. You never know until you try.

**Author's Note:**

> I will always need feedback to pacify my paranoid mind that my writing is horrible so if you like, please leave kudos or some constructive criticism in the comments. For Porcher if you're reading this, sorry for making you read so much of my fanfiction (including the Hamilton one).


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